ENGLEWOOD, COLO. — Denver Broncos Interim coach Jerry Rosburg is two weeks ahead as the guy charged with speaking his mind and it’s clear he intends to do nothing while he does.
“This organization has been through a lot…it’s been a mess,” Rosburg said Friday. You all know the fans are fed up and we created this mess… [And] we have to pick up our own damage, these players, these coaches, we have to pick up after ourselves, we have to humble ourselves and go and change this thing. And it’s fertile ground, it’s an incredible franchise, three Super Bowl trophies, Hall of Famers. It shouldn’t be like this. I may not be there to see them bloom, but it will be a rich garden.
Rosburg, who joined the Broncos in September at the request of general manager George Paton to help address the team’s game-day management issues at the time, was moved to the interim coaching position on Monday. Nathaniel Hackett, in his first year as head coach, was fired on Sunday just hours after the Broncos fell to 4-11 with a dismal 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.
Rosburg joked that in his limited window as head coach, “I can pretty much do whatever I want. I do whatever I want.”
But Rosburg won’t leave the Broncos side by side to the finish line in this disappointing season. He put the Broncos in full pads for practice Thursday and cleared about a foot of snow from the practice grounds so the Broncos could still practice outdoors Thursday and Friday after a quick storm.
The Broncos are already guaranteed to miss the playoffs for the seventh straight season and now face the daunting task of playing the Kansas City Chiefs — a “star-studded” squad — Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, Rosburg said.
However, when asked about his first game as NFL head coach against the 12-3 Chiefs, Rosburg said, “I’m not scared.”
Rosburg, a longtime NFL assistant who spent 11 seasons under John Harbaugh as the Baltimore Ravens’ special teams coordinator, essentially retired from the league when Paton called him up earlier this season after the Broncos had repeated game management issues. Rosburg worked with the team’s analysis department, “guys who got 1,600 on their SATs,” until he was moved to interim coaching on Monday.
He has asserted himself on every level since the temporary promotion, including the firing of offensive line coach Butch Barry and special teams coordinator Dwayne Stukes on Mondays.
On Friday, he addressed several Broncos players this week to publicly push back against the critical quarterback Russell Wilson had to face this season following the dismissal of Hackett.
Rosburg says wide receiver jerry jedy “is my hero today” for being one of those players.
“I have to be careful with my vocabulary here, but there’s a lot of bullshit out there,” Rosburg said. “[Jeudy] hung on and stood up with great courage and conviction as to the truth, I would say.
“Damn, they did it,” Rosburg added when asked about other players who have backed Wilson. What is a signature word? [the reports are] a bunch of shit. When they see that, I really appreciate the guys doing that.”
Wilson, who signed a five-year, $245 million contract extension in September, is on track for a career low in touchdown passes — he has 12 in 13 starts — and has been sacked 49 times in top of the league.
“Our job as coaches and teammates, if we really want to make a statement, go for it on Sunday,” Rosburg said. “We’ll play our – we’ll play well and practice well and give him the opportunities he deserves to show what a great quarterback he is. It’s action. All the other things we can say, they won’t have any value unless we play it that way.”
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